I'm reading Michigan Copper - The Untold Story by C. Fred Ryndholm. The book was a Christmas gift from my son and daughter in law. It'a a good gift for them to have given me because I have a (probably strange) fascination with the U.P., and especially the Keweenaw Peninsula. I spend time there every summer.

The fascination has to do with the 99% pure copper found in the U.P., the only type of its kind in the world. Other copper mines produce copper that is less than 5% pure.

Copper taken from the Keweenaw can be hammered into tools, or smelted directly into ingots.

That's prosaic compared to the Really Big Mystery. Evidence has been found of massive Pre-Colombian surface mines in the Keweenaw and on Isle Royale in Lake Superior. Ancient tools, pots and other remnants have been found in the shallow pits, yet no archaeologist can say from whence they came. Some of the pot fragments are more than 2500 years old.

The amount of copper taken from the shallow mines is estimated to exceed ten million pounds! Yet nobody knows where all of it went!

Copper found in Inca and Aztec antiquities is from the Keweenaw, proven by molecular testing. Some copper from the Keewenaw has been found in ancient Egyptian artifacts. Copper arrowheads found in Indian burial mounds came from the Keweenaw. There were trade routes in the pre-Colombian era that extended from the UP to Central and South America.

Still, the huge amount of float copper taken form shallow mines in the U.P. and Keweenaw has never been archaeologically accounted for.

What is clear now is that there was a civilization present in the U.P. well before the "discovery" of North America.

Take milk. Add acid and rennet and it separates into curds and whey. The whey is watery. The curds are cheesy. You get different kinds of curd depending on the acid, amount of rennet, and the way the mixture is processed while the milk separates. Long before the process of making cheddar cheese is finished, you can pull out some of the curds and eat as is. Dip in batter and fry (see above.) Or melt on top of french fries with brown gravy (if you are a crazy Canadian.)

Cheese curds -- since ancient times known as "the devil's heur d'oeuvre".

Dante's Inferno canto 12:Torturous path we'd have to take down the side Of the abyss; and stretched out along its rim, The infamy of Crete, conceived in the falsified Cow, gnawed his cheese curds in grim fury.

So you see, cheese curd is cheese in the infant stage, aborted cheese, as it were.

Unaborted curd is pressed and drained. Usually salted. Aged in a scientifically precisely temperature-controlled special room, or perhaps a cave. Often the cheese is inoculated with a specific strain of mold. In those cases, you couldn't rid the rooms or the caves of the mold if you wanted to. It's everywhere. Once you walk in, its everywhere on you. I saw this on television, so do not disrespect my authoritah.

"A cheese curd is an orangish cheese byproduct that feels like Silly Putty but tastes a lot better. It was invented accidentally by UW cheese scientists attempting to create an object of pure cholesterol that would still squeak. Rats who are fed this remarkable food develop an unusual capacity to polka and drink beer."

I did give myself food poisoning yesterday from making a strawberry smoothie. I used frozen strawberries that had been opened and left unfrozen for about a week in the refrigerator. I'm surprised that did it. I took one gulp and instantly noticed a sour flavor and poured the rest out, but that was enough. It was a Christmas gift to myself which I've been unwrapping now for about 30 hours. Never trust a fruit, they are only slightly more trustworthy than a legume and they are far more pretentious on top of it.

I gotta say Mr. Haz, that sounds far fetched on a couple points, mostly that 10,000 people could work there for 1000 years and leave little evidence of it. Also that copper from Wisconsin could be in ancient Egypt. Anything is possible, but that does not fit what we know so far. I'm skeptical.

In Madison, there is a restaurant called Graze. When I am in Madison, I go there. They have these fried pickles that are delicious.

I mention it because in the remake of Straw Dogs I just watched, the city sclicker is offered a fried pickle by his small town Southern Belle in that very small town, he crinkles his nose and refuses the pickle.

The scene did not ring true for me - as did much of its silly caricature of small-town Southern USA. But, by the end of it, a bad guy had his neck shorn by a bear trap, so it was fun to watch anyway.

"7. They had no cultivated and husbanded livestock, hence there is no evidence of ancient curds of cheese."

LOL.

Interesting stuff Michael Haz, thanks for this. I knew mining in the UP was big, but I didn't know it was old, too. I believe the pastie also ties in with how immigrant miners used to carry their lunch to work up there, too.

Cheese curds are delicious - I am surprised there are those that haven't had them (or heard of them) before. A great snack. And a monkish one indeed washed down with a hearty ale.

A few years ago in northern Alaska an Inuit archaeological discovery was made. The evidence suggested that some 5,000 years ago an ice sheet had calved directly on to a dwelling, killing the entire family but preserving the remains very well. One artifact that was found was a copper bowl that analysis showed had come from Russia. Ancient copper really got around. Incidentally, the cheese curds in the bowl were still fresh enough to eat, though they no longer squeaked.

we had fried pickles for the first time in a NC restaurant on Outerbanks. That and salad -- they (the only restaurant that seemed open) didn't have much else for us vegetarians on Christmas Eve. We were grateful for what they had.

I mention it because in the remake of Straw Dogs I just watched, the city sclicker is offered a fried pickle by his small town Southern Belle in that very small town, he crinkles his nose and refuses the pickle.

The remake of Straw Dogs is a terrible piece of propaganda. Who in their right mind thinks they could or should remake Sam Peckinpah movies?